Thursday’s List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud…….

13) USC’s AD Lynn Swann is taking grief in Los Angeles over the Kliff Kingsbury fiasco, where the Trojans hired Kingsbury as their new OC, then 34 days later, watched Kingsbury run off to be head coach of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals.

Had Swann waited until the eight NFL head coach openings were filled, he would’ve been spared the embarrassment of hiring a guy who didn’t want to be there. Now he has to hire another OC, and it is less than a month until Signing Day for recruits. Not good.

12) Kliff Kingsbury said couple of months ago that he would take Kyler Murray with the first pick in the draft, if he could. Well……..now he can, since Arizona has the first pick in the draft.

Would another team trade for Josh Rosen and open the door for that to happen?

11) Denver Broncos hired Bears’ DC Vic Fangio as their new head coach, beating out Steelers’ OL coach Mike Munchak- those two coaches were born about five miles apart near Scranton, PA.

10) Jets signed Adam Gase as coach; Gase went 23-26 as the Dolphins’ coach, losing his only playoff game 30-12 at Pittsburgh in 2016. Gase went 5-1 against the Jets with Miami.

Everyone except Denver is anxious to sign offense-geared head coaches.

9) Tennessee Vols hired OC Jim Chaney away from Georgia; he will be Tennessee’s 4th OC the last four years- he was make $950,000 a year in Athens, so safe to say he got a hefty raise to move to Knoxville.

8) Cleveland Browns hired OC Freddie Kitchens as its new HC, based on his development of rookie QB Baker Mayfield. Most assistant coaches were fired, including DC Gregg Williams, who was interim coach when the Browns won five of their last seven games.

This is similar reasoning that Tampa Bay used a few years ago when Buccaneers fired HC Lovie Smith and promoted Dirk Koetter to HC, figuring that Koetter was instrumental in the development of QB Jameis Winston— how did that turn out for them?

Kitchens is the 6th former Alabama football player to become an NFL head coach, last one being Mike Riley with the Chargers.

7) Usually, sign-up for the Westgate SuperBook’s NFL handicapping contest starts in July; this year, they’re hoping to start signing people up on March 1. Over 3,000 people were in this year’s contest; the champ won over $1.4M.

6) New Mexico Lobos basketball player Corey Manigault is the nephew of playground legend Earl (the Goat) Manigault, a famous New York City ballplayer from a long time ago whose career was derailed by off-court issues.

5) Trivia you get from the movies: When Jesse Owens won the gold medal in the 200-meter sprint in the 1936 Olympics. he won by :00.4 seconds over a guy named Mack Robinson.

You may have heard of Mack’s younger brother, Jackie Robinson. Pretty good baseball player.

4) Saben Lee, who plays basketball for Vanderbilt, is the son of former Florida State/NFL running back Amp Lee, who played nine years in the NFL for four teams.

Amp Lee caught the last TD pass Joe Montana threw for the 49ers; later on, he won a Super Bowl ring with the 1999 Rams.

3) Milwaukee Brewers signed C Yasmani Grandal to a one-year contract for $18.25M.

2) Tuesday, four armed guards entered the New Orleans Saints’ locker room, with Coach Sean Payton wheeling the Lombardi Trophy in, on top of $225k in cash.

Payton asked the team: “Y’all want this??? Win 3 F’n games.”

The locker room erupted. $225k is each player’s Super Bowl bonus.

1) Last time Cowboys/Rams met in the playoffs was in January of ’86, when the Dieter Brock-led Rams shut Dallas out 20-0 in Anaheim. That was 20 days before current Rams’ coach Sean McVay was born.

Dallas’ OC Scott Linehan used to be the Rams’ head coach.
Rams’ DC Wade Phillips used to be the Cowboys’ head coach.